1 week hiatus owing to unplanned family visit. Christmas Poll Results. Progress Report, 19/11 - 21

Hello everyone and welcome to another progress report and some short-term unfortunate news.

First things first, the hiatus: I was recently approached by my wife and informed of a "surprise" visit by family from outside the country, starting this Sunday, having opted to come visit us now in the immediate since they will be unable to during December and the holidays. They plan to visit for about a week and will be staying in the only area of the apartment that has space, which happens to be where I do this work of mine. This means that, inevitably, the Monday Loop of this Monday (22:nd November) and most probably the one following that (29:th November) will face cancellation since I will be unable to be at my work station during this time. I want to offer my sincere apologies for being unable to fulfill my usual update schedule, and hope to be able to make it up to you in the near future. This will not impact the Christmas Special in any significant way since I started it in good time, but my other, planned content for the coming week will be disrupted entirely.

Now, while it would be a huge powermove to simply sit and make this content while unflinchingly maintaining eye-contact with my mother-in-law, I think it would be best if I prioritize family peace and thus their ignorance on this matter.

Again, my apologies, and I assure you that I will work as hard as I can on things up to this Sunday, and whenever (if it does) the opportunity arises during this coming week. I will then make a return on the 29:th with a progress report where I'll hope to outline the Christmas Special script and whatever else I've been able to work on during this time.

Now, onto some actually interesting news: the poll results.

As can be seen in the header image, Jaina Proudmoore is the official winner of the 2021 Christmas Special and will thus be featured for a video slated for release on the 24:th of December. I know we're weird up here, celebrating on the 24:th rather than the 25:th, but I imagine most would prefer having the video a day earlier than a day later in that respect :)

The script is presently underway, and I'm doing some VA talent research on who can pull off a convincing Jaina voice. While I could rely on in-game sounds, it's been a while since we had a properly voiced clip, and since this won't be an incredibly long project, I think I should be able to fit it within my strained holiday budget.

I'm also in the process of doing a large asset-rip from the game, so as to be able to create an appropriate scene-build for the project in question. It'll require the manual application of textures to each and every object which, while not overtly difficult, is time consuming - a single, baseline house can come in 3 parts for instance, of an exterior, interior and chimney, and then there's all the separate furniture pieces. My main consideration now that is somewhat up in the air is whether to feature a goblin as "Santa" or some semblance of orc, but I'll be figuring this out while I attempt to do baseline rigging and the likes for the characters in question, and depending on time of course.

Owing to the poll results I've also opted to begin the creation of a large collage featuring the models being voted on, so people have an actual model to look at to see whether their mental image corresponds with the actual 3D version of them that the poll will reflect. This is something that has occurred to me before as perhaps being useful, particularly when seeing the results of the "favourite franchise" poll we held, but which I only recently realized is probably more important than simply being "useful" owing to people's inherent biases in engaging with both 2D and 3D spaces across multiple programs and franchises.

TL:DR:

Family suddenly visiting this Sunday, but I'll be back the 29:th of this month where upon updates will resume as always. Jaina won the Christmas poll. Work is underway.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and for all of your kind words. My apologies again for the sudden disruption in updates - I'll do my absolute best to make this Christmas piece a good one, and hopefully I can make it up to you over the coming weeks with my usual content.

Take care of yourselves, and each other!
/DH